Feeling the Burn (of rejection)

A Pennsylvania man who walked into a gym aerobics class and opened fire, killing three women and wounding nine before turning the gun on himself, “had a lot of hatred in him,” police said Wednesday.

George Sodini, 48, brought four handguns into the LA Fitness gym outside Pittsburgh and used three of them, firing at least 36 times around 8 p.m. Tuesday, Allegheny County Police Superintendent Charles Moffatt said.

Sodini, a member of the gym, was found dead in the aerobics room, lying on top of one of his guns about seven feet from one of the victims.

Authorities believe Sodini targeted the aerobics class, because a schedule was found in his home with that class circled, Moffatt said.

But police do not believe he targeted anyone personally. An online diary, as well as notes at the scene and at his home, have led them to believe he was targeting women in general. In the note found at the scene in Sodini’s gym bag, he complains he had never spent a weekend with a woman, never vacationed with a woman and never lived with a woman, and that he had had limited sexual experiences, Moffatt said.

He makes similar complaints in his online blog, which also documents his growing rage at women for rejecting him and at the world he felt had abandoned him.

Witnesses told police the gunman was dressed in black when he entered the class, shut off the lights, walked about 10 feet and opened fire.

I’m not going to even bother talking about issues of gun control, gun availability, and the proliferation of violence with firearms. No number of senseless deaths will be able to assuage the gun ownership fetish some folks seem to have. Instead, stories like this (and the countless other instances of pointless killings) leave me to wonder how certain people can get pushed so far to the edge that they can engage in doing something as horrific as killing; much less killing people with whom you have absolutely NO ties.

Throughout my life I have not been able to sustain a romantic relationship for more than two years at a time; each of those experiences ending a negative note. Whether I unable to (or perhaps, unwilling to) relinquish other priorities (i.e. school or work) for the sake of a relationship, I was burned for some other man (thankfully, I haven’t been dumped for another woman yet), or I simply did not meet the woman’s expectations, I have had my fair share of unsavory experiences with the fairer sex. And I’d be lying if I said the breakups didn’t hurt to some extent…if for no other reason but because they supported the idea that I simply have an inability to successfully maintain a relationship. But at worse, my experiences have only contributed an aversion to relationships and a certain level of cautiousness I now practice when dating people. My experiences have NEVER motivate killing. So what could drive a man to the point of murdering people is beyond me.

It should be pointed out that police reports are at least indicating that this loon carried with him a deep-seated hatred for both women and society. That certainly makes for a deadly cocktail as far as psychological disorders go. But I’m left to wonder if there were any clearly marked signposts revealing this dude’s insanity. He had a blog where he recorded his malevolent intentions, but as far as I can tell, that was about the extent to which information about his issues were disseminated. But for the poor victims not privy to his blog, what could they have done to prevent their slaying? Indeed, what can any of us do to preclude the possiblility of becoming victims of nuts like this? While it’s true that “a bullet doesn’t have a name on it,” that inauspicious warning of anonymous harm doesn’t stop there. Nowadays, crime and violence in general doesn’t have a name on it. Victims today are increasingly harmless and unsuspecting. In this particular scenario, people involved in a routine visit at a gym wound up beoming casualties of loon who sucked so much with the ladies, his only recourse was to kill a few of ’em.

The purpose of this particular post is not to invoke fear. And as tempting as it is to do, this post is not even intended to criticize the culture of guns. But this story does give us a reminder that when it comes to nuts like this, we should keep one eyed closed in prayer and one eye opened to watch our environments. As much as some people would like to have us think, violence is not just committed by dark-skinned boogeymen in urban areas. No. This kind of thing has the potential to occur anywhere a gun can travel. And trust me: some people may have trouble finding a date but they won’t have any problem at all finding a gun and an opportunity to use it.

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20 comments on “Feeling the Burn (of rejection)”

Another day, another unfortunate killing, another attempt to make a lone act of stupidity into a debate about gun control. So if Sodini could used a grenade, a Hummer, or a baseball bat to kill his victims, I’m sure you’d be advocating a ban on those items too, right? Wake up! This kind of tragedy is all about crazy people doing deranged thing. It has NOTHING to do with guns and gun control!

I’m not going to even bother talking about issues of gun control, gun availability, and the proliferation of violence with firearms. No number of senseless deaths will be able to assuage the gun ownership fetish some folks seem to have. Instead, stories like this (and the countless other instances of pointless killings) leave me to wonder how certain people can get pushed so far to the edge that they can engage in doing something as horrific as killing; much less killing people with whom you have absolutely NO ties.

Well Andre, you didn’t want to make this about gun control, but I WILL!

Josh, you’re right. People with aspirations of mass killings COULD use bombs, trucks, or whatever you’re suggesting. But the REALITY is that these nuts chose firearms every single time to ensure they can kill the maximum number people in the shortest time possible. And in almost every mass shooting we’ve had this year (and we’ve almost doubled 2008’s total and we’re not even close to done yet), it was a white male, law-abiding citizen (up to the moment of implosion) and the guns were legally purchased and permitted. At least three of this year’s mass shooters also had concealed carry permits. And it’s only the beginning of August and the fatalities for just a dozen or so mass shootings is almost up to 100 victims already.This country has no problem making it virtually impossible to enjoy smoking a cigarette but buy a gun? Hell yeah! Buy two guns? Hell yeah again! Buy multiple guns and lots of ammo with almost no restrictions at all? That’s a big 10-4, buddy!And kindly note, not one of these women died yesterday in the name of patriotism, in the name of defending the country against a tyrannical government. In fact, not one gun murder in America in the last century has EVER been committed to defend the Second Amendment, or any other amendment, or the Constitution as a whole. These men murder because they are tiny, inferior, insecure, angry, jealous malcontents. So please spare me your patriotic blather; it’s all lies. Don’t try to dress it up with lace and chocolate frosting. It’s all about being able to kill when you want, where you want, and how you want. Now we just wait for the next massacre, and the same tired “conversation” that goes nowhere because too many people are afraid to give up something that only makes them more dangerous to the rest of us, especially those of us who know these lunatics.

My point is a simple one, if you would’ve taken the time to read it. You can’t blame responsible gun owners for incidents involving a loon. Do you REALLY want to see your rights taken away because of a few nutcases who lack the mental capacity to own up to their responsibility? If so, God help you!

“So if Sodini could used a grenade, a Hummer, or a baseball bat to kill his victims, I’m sure you’d be advocating a ban on those items too, right?”

That has to be the most bizarre example I’ve ever heard in defense of guns. Hummers are VEHICLES used for transportation. Baseball bats are for…duh…playing baseball. Their primary purposes are NOT for killing. Guns are. For everybody claiming guns are used defensively, tell that to Sodini’s victims. Ask THEM if he was “defending” himself from the women he killed.

“…leave me to wonder how certain people can get pushed so far to the edge that they can engage in doing something as horrific as killing…”

I’ve given up trying to understand it in the same sense that I fail to see how certain men become “dead-beat dads” by abandoning their children. I guess it’s not so much as what is in some people that makes them capable of such things, but rather what is not in them. *Shrug*

I think all of us have faced rejection by the opposite sex in some form or other. Some of us have faced rejection quite a lot. Someone I know was the “guy that all the girls avoided”. He was very selfish, self centered with poor social skills. Some of us tried to help with the social skills but he refused to change. Last month, he finally got married at the age of 40 to a very sweet girl.

At first, some of us asked “what’s wrong with this girl”? But there is nothing wrong with her. She is a great girl and would be a wonderful wife. What happened was that this guy finally found someone that he felt was worth changing his bad ways for. He finally realised that he needed to change to make the relationship a success.

I guess I am sharing this story because he chose to realise that he was part of the problem and could do something to change himself. In contrast, Sodini and many of these similar killers tend to blame others, be it women or society for their own problems.

Hey Dre,
“No number of senseless deaths will be able to assuage the gun ownership fetish some folks seem to have.”

And there’s good reason. Your picking out a few examples of bad behavior out of the millions of us. That’s stereotyping at it’s worst. If I used your methodology to attack a minority group (what your doing is called “exampling”), you would say I was a racist of the worst sort and you’d be right.
Most estimates of gun ownership in the U.S. range between 39% and 50% of US households having at least one gun(thats about 43-55 million households). The estimates for the number of privately owned guns range from 190 million to 300 million. Yet for some unknown reason you keep trying to paint us all with a brush you found next to a dead body. If you really want to address the problem of gun violence, why not try to figure out why 46 of the 54 deaths in Flint last year came from an area 1/10 the size of the whole city?
P.S. It’s not a “fetish” to want to protect yourself and exercise a right given to you by the “Bill of Rights”.

I wasn’t about to make this an issue of gun rights (though I admit some of my commentary snidely suggested it). But since this post has turned into yet another referendum on gun ownership, I’ll bite. For me, it’s pretty cathartic to get this out in the open once and for all.

For the people who lost their loved ones in a sensless gun death, statistics don’t mean crap. For those of us who hear about random killings, while working in vulnerable environments, statistics don’t matter. What matters is that people are dead and the weapon of choice is being ignored because bringing it up goes against people’s “rights.”

Changing gears a bit, I find it interesting that you’re trying to make some kind of juxtaposition in “exampling” minorities and gun owners. For one, gun lobbies have a TANGIBLE power in this country that minority groups don’t. Secondly, a denial of gun “rights” does NOT have the same effect as the denial of basic human rights…which has been a staple of racism faced by minorities. You take away a person’s guns…and what? They have to go deer hunting with pea shooters. Gasp! Can’t have that. Meanwhile, you take a way a person’s human rights based on skin color…and what do you get? Check the history books dating back about 400 years and you’ll see.

“It’s not a “fetish” to want to protect yourself and exercise a right given to you by the “Bill of Rights”.”

I can hear the “protection” argument until I’m blue in the face, and still call B.S. I wonder how many people truly do use their guns for protection (as opposed to concocting some lame story about using self-defense simply to justify having the damn gun), and how many people simply don’t want to get told they can’t have them. I suspect it’s more of the latter. These folks are the ones with the fetish; a fetish that won’t allow them to care that as long their “rights” are being exercised, more people stand to die senselessly. True, banning guns outright is not the answer: as that will only create an underground market for the mess. But what gun owners won’t even BOTHER doing is trying to add something worthwhile to discussion. So we’ll all go on with business as usual until the next mass killing (likely to be done with a legal weapon, mind you).

So I’ll tell you what I tell any other person who is tired of being defined by a subset of people: take more of a stand against the ones giving you the black eye. Instead of just getting snug and comfortable under the “rights” blanket and allowing the NRA to continue with that nonsensical “guns don’t kill people….” mess, take a more active approach in killing some of this gun violence. Until that happens, you can expect to be bunched into the same group as “gun nuts.”

Hey Dre,
O.K., you’ve held up a dead child and are using emotion instead of facts. It seems you believe we would all be safer if we (gun owners) just gave up some rights. That’s the same logic the Bush administration used on the War on Terror that you railed against. We could stop a lot of shootings if we had random searches-but your against that, based on rights. We could expand tapping phones of suspected gang members- but your against domestic spying. We could search cars that look suspicious- but your against profiling. We could randomly search houses in high crime areas-but that would violate the rights of the innocent. In fact Dre, with all due respect, your a champion of everyone’s rights except mine as a gun owner. Are rights only important if they apply to you? You want input from gun owners? We have given it to you-look at any NRA site. Mandatory 10 year prison sentences for people caught with illegal handguns. Will you support that? Or is it again wrong because it’s only MY rights you want to take away? You claim that killings are done by legal guns, but that’s NOT TRUE, and I for the life of me don’t understand why you keep saying that. 78% of all capital crimes are committed with ILLEGAL guns, I’ll give the facts to you again and again you’ll ignore it-(http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/fuopr.htm) If guns are the problem then why are the crimes all in one section of Flint? Why won’t you answer that question? Are there more guns in that one section of town? Or just more illegal guns that your assault on my rights won’t affect at all. Separate your stereotyping from other people’s all you want, your just justifying it just like everyone else that does it. Pointing out a SMALL fraction of a group to vilify the whole group will always be wrong in my eyes. When Racists do it, when Rush does it, and even when you do it. It’s unfair to the gun owners who are innocent and have done nothing wrong. But I guess those are the one group’s rights you care nothing about.

See, I resent everything you just said, because I’ve stated on this VERY BLOG my support for both gun rights and wiretaps. That post, incidentally, was written in a pre-Obama United States, where Bush was making a mockery of the Constitution. On top of that, this particular post wasn’t even about gun ownership. You made it about guns. As I brought to “Josh’s” attention, I pointed out from the start that this wasn’t going to be some referendum on guns. Recall the line:

“I’m not going to even bother talking about issues of gun control, gun availability, and the proliferation of violence with firearms. No number of senseless deaths will be able to assuage the gun ownership fetish some folks seem to have. Instead, stories like this (and the countless other instances of pointless killings) leave me to wonder how certain people can get pushed so far to the edge that they can engage in doing something as horrific as killing; much less killing people with whom you have absolutely NO ties.”

But since you and he insisted on bringing up the issue, I decided to address it: but mostly in rhetorical way. After all, I don’t think this country will EVER move toward reasonable gun control in a way that pleases everybody…so I don’t bother wasting my time providing commentary. What I DID do in the response section (diplomatically in my opinion) was to challenge you and other gun lovers to be more active in addressing gun-related mass killings. Instead of simply saying “I have rights” or “Don’t judge us all by a few people”, why can’t gun owners be more committed to alleviating gun violence? Taking the passive approach while people are getting capped left and right is what makes gun owners look like heartless, self-centered asses. When the NRA goes some nonsensical PSA immediately after Columbine, you can expect for people to resist its message. Call that flashing a dead baby if you want. Sometimes that dead baby has more influence than statistics.

Hey Dre,
Your support losses a lot of it’s validity when you trash us as having a “fetish” for guns, call us “gun nuts”, associate us with complete nut jobs and try to paint us as unsympathetic toward dying people. My point is that we gun owners, as a rule, are responsible people who share your concern for the plight of inner-city gun abuse. Want better answers? Support the NRA, support Right to Carry, let Eddie Eagle educate your children on proper gun safety and keep your attention on the illegal guns and not on the antics of a few bad actors. My rights don’t need to be diminished and I sincerely doubt it would change the stats. Your support of wiretapping suprises me-I’ll read that post later 🙂

P.S. Here’s a link to “The Armed Citizen” with thousnads of examples of people protecting themselves. You can check any of them at their Main Stream Media sources that are sited. I linked you to the ones in Michigan so it’ll be easier for you to double check. (http://www.nraila.org/ArmedCitizen/Default.aspx) Caution; your liberal friends will disown you if they find out you actually want facts on guns.

Hey Greg,
I tried to find a liberal site that carried those articles, but guess what? There aren’t any. Don’t you want both sides? Anyway, every one of those stories had a link to the original source. So if you don’t trust the NRA-check them for yourself.

Hey Dre,
I read that article and I have to say, I was suprised to see your support. Although I already knew you supported that S.C. decision. I must have missed that post as there was no comment by me. I apologize for misinterpeting your stand on wiretapping. If you could refrain from the stereotyping and name-calling of gun owners (I know you don’t mean all of us) I wouldn’t get so defensive. However, I admit I was slightly out of line.